


It's Just a Nap

by ShaolinQueen



Series: Drowning and Resurfacing [4]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Dysfunctional Family, Eating Disorders, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nile Freeman is So Done, One Big Happy Family, Protective Andy | Andromache of Scythia, Protective Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Protective Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Sleep Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:20:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28443807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShaolinQueen/pseuds/ShaolinQueen
Summary: “Really?!” Joe exclaimed without letting his sister finish. “Like real sleep?” He confirmed with a hopeful whisper, all of a sudden genuinely careful with the volume of his voice. And all of a sudden Nile had the feeling that this conversation wouldn’t really go as she was expecting.“Yes,” Quynh nodded solemnly with a satisfied smirk. “His mouth is partly open and I think he even drooled a little.”
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Drowning and Resurfacing [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2083350
Comments: 17
Kudos: 299





	It's Just a Nap

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, I’m back! I was overwhelmed by all the lovely comments to my previous story **Drowning in Memories** and I decided to finally write a sort of follow-up, with less angst and more fluff this time~
> 
> Reading the prequel it’s not mandatory to enjoy this story, but it does help contextualize the situation and understand some references. 
> 
> Once again this wouldn’t have happened without the invaluable help of the amazing **ilostmyothersock** , to whom I’m forever grateful.
> 
> Hope you’ll like it, and all the comments are very welcome!

In between starting to travel together with Andromache and Quynh and hopelessly falling in love with his former enemy, Yusuf finally took notice of Nicolò’s peculiar relationship with sleep. 

As soon as he had the whole picture quite appallingly clear, it took him a couple of decades to ultimately make peace with it. To make peace with _and accept_ his beloved’s sleep schedule (or lack thereof). 

Before meeting Nicolò, even the notion that someone could function without sleep _for days_ had been a mystery to Yusuf. It had always felt like an alien concept, a legend, a myth, something that people would tell as an exaggeration, to add some drama to a tale, to make a story more captivating.

But no, his Nicolò had proven multiple times to be perfectly able to spend three nights in a row _reading instead of sleeping_ and still be the first one to jump into action when ambushed by the occasional bandits. 

To Yusuf, who deemed sleep _sacred_ and always took those extra ten seconds to react (sometimes a bit more than that, he was aware, thank you very much), it was simply uncanny. 

Paradoxically, he had concluded after years of study that Nicolò could make his sleep habits resemble those of a normal person during stressful situations. Whether in the middle of a war or a complicated extraction, when necessary his Habibi would religiously follow a regular schedule, forcing his body to rest for at least a couple of hours per night.

This was something that had greatly reassured Yusuf at the beginning, before he had actually realised that the respite of these methodical patterns was always inexorably followed by the fallout of the horrors they saw. That afterwards his Nicolò would suffer weeks of restlessness and lack of sleep, of stomach aches and skipped meals, of nightmares and quite the impressive array of self-sacrificing behaviours. 

And while during the centuries Nicolò had learnt to take better care of himself, for his husband’s sake if nothing else, his sleep habits remained atrocious and Yusuf would never miss the opportunity to encourage a nap or relish in the rare feeling of waking up before his beloved, watching him sleep peacefully. 

  
  


* * *

Nile entered the living room after a long afternoon jog, a cheerful greeting on her lips, when icy fingers covered her mouth aborting any sound. 

Heart pounding in her chest and quite ready to break that hand, it took her a couple of seconds to recognise that the bony fingers belonged to Quynh. Rolling her eyes, she let the other immortal drag her to the kitchen, only being released after she carefully closed the door behind them.

“What the hell, man, what-“

“Chiến Thắng is napping.” Nile’s outraged outburst was interrupted by Quynh’s matter of fact explanation.

“Where? What?” Nile dumbly repeated, it’s not like she had had time to notice anything before being manhandled into another room. 

Their lost sister hadn’t wasted any time regaining her scarily fast reflexes, Nile had realised with no small amount of admiration as soon as she had had the chance to spend her first few weeks with Quynh. No wonder Andy was hopelessly and utterly smitten, no matter how hard she tried to play it cool.

“Nicolò. Is. Sleeping. On. The. Sofa.” Quynh quietly enunciated every word as if she was speaking to a child. Her eyes kept darting towards the door, almost daring the sound of her voice to leave the room.

Nile rolled her eyes again, as if that explanation would justify the other warrior's ridiculous actions. She was about to express her rebuttal when Joe entered the kitchen from the backdoor. Nile almost sighed in relief, Joe would certainly offer more patience and a proper clarification. 

“Hello, my sisters,” he greeted them jovially, kissing them in turn on their cheeks. 

Confusion and irritation momentarily forgotten, Nile’s heart melted a little. Even months after their emotional reunion, Joe would act as if it was a wonder to have his entire family with him, all together, all safe. It was undisputedly adorable. 

“Yusuf,” Quynh interrupted her musings. “Hasn’t the child been educated properly?” 

Joe looked at them curiously, while Nile rolled her eyes for the third time in the past ten minutes. 

“Educated about what?” He asked his sister kindly, automatically mimicking her hushed tones. From his expression though Nile could tell that Joe was partially humouring Quynh and partially enjoying teasing Nile. 

“Chiến Thắng is napping in the living room and-” 

“Really?!” Joe exclaimed without letting his sister finish. “Like real sleep?” He confirmed with a hopeful whisper, all of a sudden genuinely careful with the volume of his voice. And all of a sudden Nile had the feeling that this conversation wouldn’t really go as she was expecting.

“Yes,” Quynh nodded solemnly with a satisfied smirk. “His mouth is partly open and I think he even drooled a little.” 

“Oh, my Habibi,” Joe whispered dreamily while Nile kept looking between the two of them as if they had grown a third and fourth head.

“And _the child_ here almost woke him up, just a few minutes ago.” Quynh finally added the crucial detail she was trying to disclose to Joe from his very first enquiry.

“NILE!!!” Joe shouted-whispered at her in pure disbelief, as if she had mortally offended the love of his life, his family and the entire freaking universe. 

Completely at a loss and more than mildly irritated, Nile opened her hands with a frustrated gesture, clearly indicating that she still had absolutely zero clue on why on earth disturbing Nicky’s nap, that for the record, she hadn’t even realised was happening, was such an unforgivable sin. 

“You are right, you are right,” Joe finally admitted with an apologetic smile. He invited her to sit at the table, offering a glass of juice as a truce. 

“You see, little sister, sleep eludes our Nicolò quite often,” Joe started to explain, joining her at the table. “That’s why even a short nap is quite important for him.” 

Nile kind of got the gist. After all, she had witnessed Nicky reading in the middle of the night and gardening early in the morning many times. She now realised that those days he probably hadn't gone to bed at all.

“Still,” she tried to reason with them, “It seems to me that you two are taking mother henning to an unnecessary new level. The guy is over 900 years old, for Pete’s sake, I’m sure he can take care of himself. He does seem pretty capable to me,” Nile concluded with confidence. It’s not like Nicky was hopeless, the man was basically the most responsible of them all.

“Oh Nile, Nile, Nile, there’s so much you need to know…” Joe shook his head in desolation and put a hand on her shoulder. “Nicky would cut off his own foot before asking for help.”

“Literally,” Quynh interjected for the first time in a long time, arms crossed, leaning over the kitchen counter. “Once he literally cut off his foot with a sharp stone in order to free himself from a shackle and then free the three of us.” 

Nile looked horrified, dozens of questions popping up in her head that she wasn’t sure she actually wanted to be answered. Quynh didn’t really give her the time to voice them anyway, as she continued, addressing her brother.

“Does she know about the time he starved himself for days to save rations, _forgot_ to mention it, and finally collapsed, scaring the hell out of us?” 

Joe shook his head minutely.

“What about the time he caught the plague taking care of that family in Prussia? Or when he spent two entire days in horrible agony because he took a poisoned arrow to protect Andromache?” Quynh pressed. 

“It was a quarrel,” Joe absently corrected her. “But no, I haven’t really told Nile those stories,” Joe admitted in shame. 

“I’m disappointed, Yusuf,” Quynh dismissed shaking her head. “Nile, I apologise, I was wrongly assuming that this one here wouldn’t waste any time warning the newbie about his husband's self-sacrificing tendencies.”

Nile was quite surprised to hear the proud immortal apologise so easily, for once ignoring the fact that she was once again calling her newbie or a child. 

“In my defense,” Joe tried to explain, “We haven’t really had the chance to catch a breath since we met Nile…”

“Excuses, excuses,” Quynh muttered under her breath. 

“Anyway,” she continued in stride, “I’m pretty certain I need to catch up on some of the stories myself, I’m sure plenty happened in 500 years… And we can use the opportunity to properly educate the lovely Nile here.”

* * *

They were in the middle of yet another horrifying anecdote when Andy made an appearance. 

“Hey, did you see that Nicky is taking a nap?” She asked softly with the tiniest proud smile, pointing her thumb at the living room door. 

Her question was met with a series of very enthusiastic nods, Nile, among all, the most animated one.

“What’s going on here? And why is Nile taking notes?” She then asked, curiously looking at her lover, brother and sister all gathered around the kitchen table.

“Just a catch-up, my love,” Quynh replied easily. “And we are educating Nile on all the times our silly Chiến Thắng did something incredibly endearing but also incredibly stupid to save us pain.”

“Ah,” Andy nodded in understanding, as if it was the most normal topic in the world. “Have you covered the time he went hunting by himself in the snow, died of hypothermia then apologised because he only brought back one deer for dinner?” She asked sitting at the table, easily joining the conversation.

“No!,” Quynh exclaimed, still whispering despite the excitement. “I knew I was forgetting something from our trips in the Alps! Thank you, my dearest,” she then thanked her wife with a peck on her cheek. 

Nile, whose regret for her words _unnecessary mother-henning_ had been steadily growing by the second, couldn’t help but smile fondly at the domestic scene in front of her. Even if the subject was yet another ridiculous death of Nicky.

More time passed and more stories were shared. It was almost dinner time when Nicky finally entered the room, serene and alert, as per usual, the only indication he had been napping all this time the adorable bedhead he was sporting.

Nile noted that it took him exactly two seconds to notice that something fishy was going on. _Shit, was he looking at her notes?!_

“What are you doing?” He asked suspiciously, scrutinizing each member of his family, all of whom had different levels of guilt on their faces.

Before any of them could muster a proper reply, Booker, who had apparently been napping in the living room as well, joined them too.

“Oh, did I miss the annual recap of Nicky’s self-sacrificing deaths over the centuries?” He, same as Andy, asked with a nonchalance that surely didn’t belong in such a bleak conversation.

At that point, Nicky huffed in exasperation, clearly not at his first rodeo. Joe apologised profusely, and then they all started reviewing Nile’s notes, arguing about the accuracy of each story. 

Nile had never seen Booker so animated about something before. _No, no, no, I was literally there, it was a landmine, he pushed me aside and then tried to hide that he was missing a whole arm!_

Nile observed them in silence. She sneakily ordered takeout (she was officially starving), updating her notes when necessary. 

As far as dysfunctional families go, she couldn’t really complain, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> That’s all, folks! (For now?). Wishing you all a better 2021, as I’m sure we are all done with this weird year. Much love and till the next time! Also, I wrote a more extensive note on Tumblr: [HERE](https://shaolinqueen.tumblr.com/post/639026399521521664/its-ridiculous-or-maybe-not-but-2020-wouldnt).


End file.
